This page provides members of the media with information, resources, and multimedia products developed in association with the expeditions led by NOAA Ocean Exploration on NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer in support of the Beyond the Blue: Illuminating the Pacific campaign.

Importance | Goals | Partners | Videos & Images | Background Information | Contacts

Beyond the Blue is a multifaceted science campaign designed to raise collective knowledge, understanding, and appreciation of deep ocean waters in the Pacific Islands region through coordinated mapping and exploration expeditions, data management and sharing, strategic partnerships, and outreach and engagement. In 2024, NOAA Ocean Exploration began work with partners to conduct multiple expeditions on NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer, lead outreach and education activities, and build additional partnerships in the Pacific Islands region in support of Beyond the Blue.

In 2025, NOAA Ocean Exploration will lead a total of seven telepresence-enabled expeditions on Okeanos Explorer to collect critical mapping data in deep waters of Hawaiʻi, Palau, and Guam in support of Beyond the Blue. These expeditions include:

1. March 17-27: Beyond the Blue: 2025 ROV and Mapping Shakedown
   Honolulu, Hawai‘i - Honolulu, Hawai‘i
2. April 8-May 5: Beyond the Blue: Papahānaumokuākea ROV and Mapping
   Honolulu, Hawai‘i - Honolulu, Hawai‘i
3. May 14-June 10: Beyond the Blue: Transit Mapping
   Honolulu, Hawai‘i - Koror, Palau
4. June 20-July 14: Beyond the Blue: Palau Mapping 1
   Koror, Palau - Koror, Palau
5. July 22-August 11: Beyond the Blue: Palau Mapping 2
   Koror, Palau - Koror, Palau
6. August 20-September 4: Beyond the Blue: Marianas Box Coring and Mapping
   Koror, Palau - Guam
7. September 12-October 8: Beyond the Blue: Palau Mapping 3
   Guam - Koror, Palau

A note about live video: For our first two expeditions of 2025, we will be conducting remotely operated vehicle dives (ROV); please visit expedition web pages or the live video page for details on dive dates and times. For the remainder of expeditions in 2025, we will not be conducting ROV dives and video will generally consist of real-time mapping data collection displays and scenes around the ship.

Importance of the Expeditions

The waters in the Pacific Islands region span a diverse range of ecosystems and dynamic geological environments. They contain some of the last relatively pristine marine ecosystems on the planet and harbor numerous protected species and undiscovered maritime heritage sites.

Despite the importance of these waters, they remain largely unexplored, particularly deep waters in the region. We can’t effectively manage or protect what we don’t understand. As we increasingly look to the deep ocean for the resources it holds and the services it can provide, more and better data are needed to help us make the right decisions to ensure the vitality of these ocean places.

While there is a lot of ocean to explore, focusing exploration in one area, like the Pacific Islands region, can help us better understand similar habitats in other areas and the marine life and ecological processes that these habitats support. Exploration also contributes to our understanding of the geological history and processes, including geohazards, of the planet as a whole and helps us in the assessment of marine resources, including critical minerals.

Four Key Things to Know About the 2025 Expeditions

1. NOAA Ocean Exploration work on Okeanos Explorer in 2025 will focus on waters of the Pacific Islands region due to their biological, geological, and economic importance and the need to understand resources in the region for their management and use. The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest ocean basin on Earth. With an area of more than 60 million square miles, it covers more than 30% of our planet’s surface and holds more than half of Earth’s open water supply – yet it remains largely unexplored. U.S. waters in the Pacific Islands region alone cover nearly 2.3 million square miles, an area 200 times the size of Hawai‘i, yet less than half of these waters are unmapped using modern technology. The mapping, exploration, and characterization of the waters of the Pacific Islands region have been identified as priorities by members of the ocean exploration community.
2. Throughout 2025 Beyond the Blue expeditions on Okeanos Explorer, we will use advanced sonar systems on the ship to fill critical gaps in mapping data within deepwater areas around Hawaiʻi, Palau, and Guam. The collection of high-resolution mapping data, including seafloor, sub-bottom, and water column data, is the first step in exploring and thus understanding our ocean and is a key element of every NOAA Ocean Exploration expedition on Okeanos Explorer. Data collected during these expeditions will help fill mapping gaps in deep U.S. and international waters. In turn, we can further inform future exploration efforts, establish a baseline assessment of the ocean environment, increase our understanding of important resources and marine life to inform management decisions, and increase public awareness and appreciation of ocean issues.
3. We will map, survey, and characterize deep-sea habitats, including coral and sponge communities, to better understand the diversity, extent, distribution, connectivity, and importance of these important ecosystems and the resources that they hold. Coral reefs, including deepwater corals, and sponge grounds are some of the most important marine ecosystems on the planet, creating structures that provide shelter, food, and nursery habitat to other invertebrates and fish, including some that are commercially important and that may in turn provide us with food, medicines, and other resources. While recent research has significantly contributed to our understanding of these habitats, there is still a great deal to learn about their distribution, diversity, reproduction, and resilience, particularly in the unexplored and poorly understood deepwater areas where we will be exploring. Data collected during expeditions conducted in 2025 will also help scientists to assess connections between biological productivity on the seafloor and productivity in the overlying water column, to develop a better understanding of whole ecosystem functioning and the overall role of unique benthic habitats.
4. These expeditions are being conducted in support of Beyond the Blue, a multifaceted science campaign designed to increase understanding of deep ocean waters in the Pacific Islands region and the resources they hold through coordinated mapping and exploration expeditions, data management and sharing, strategic partnerships, and outreach and engagement. The campaign is intended to encourage collaboration across participants, enabling the leverage and amplification of funding, resources, data, knowledge, and local involvement. Data and information collected during the Beyond the Blue campaign can help to guide management and policy decisions related to living marine resources and habitats, ocean energy and mineral resources, maritime heritage resources, and offshore hazard assessments. This work builds upon previous work in the region, including the 2015-2017 Campaign to Address Pacific monument Science, Technology, and Ocean NEeds (CAPSTONE) and work on Exploration Vessel Nautilus sponsored by NOAA Ocean Exploration through the Ocean Exploration Cooperative Institute (OECI) and Ocean Exploration Trust. Work conducted under the Beyond the Blue campaign will contribute to the National Strategy for Exploring, Mapping, and Characterizing the United States Exclusive Economic Zone and Seabed 2030.

Goals of the Expeditions

The expeditions on Okeanos Explorer conducted in support of Beyond the Blue will address science themes and priority areas put forward by scientists and managers from NOAA, management agencies in the region, and the ocean science community, and local communities. NOAA priorities for each expedition include a combination of science, education, outreach, and open data objectives that will support management decisions at multiple levels. Overarching goals for Beyond the Blue expeditions on Okeanos Explorer include:

• Improving knowledge of unexplored deepwater areas in the Pacific Islands region to inform management needs for sensitive habitats, geological features, and potential resources.
• Collecting high-resolution bathymetry in areas with no or low-quality sonar data to extend bathymetric mapping coverage in support of the National Strategy for Mapping, Exploring, and Characterizing the United States Exclusive Economic Zone and Seabed 2030.
• Characterizing water column habitats using acoustics and emerging technologies.
• Collecting data to enhance predictive capabilities for vulnerable marine habitats, seafloor composition, seamount formation, plate tectonics, hydrothermal vents, critical minerals, and submarine geohazards.
• Investigating biogeographic patterns of deep-sea ecosystems and connectivity for use in broader comparisons of deepwater habitat throughout the Pacific basin and to better understand how these ecosystems are responding to climate change and other stressors.
• Mapping, surveying, and sampling geological features, including fault and fracture zones, hydrothermal vents, and extinct polymetallic sulfide systems to better understand the geological context of the region and improve knowledge of past and potential future geohazards.
• Engaging a broad spectrum of the scientific community and public in telepresence-based exploration and providing publicly accessible information and data products to spur further exploration, research, and management activities.
• Conducting operations that are co-developed with local Indigenous researchers and community members, emphasizing culturally relevant and respectful approaches.

Exploration Partners

Led by NOAA Research's NOAA Ocean Exploration, this series of expeditions on Okeanos Explorer involve a number of partners including the NOAA Office of Marine and Aviation Operations, NOAA Satellite’s National Centers for Environmental Information, NOAA’s National Ocean Service, NOAA Fisheries, and the Global Foundation for Ocean Exploration. The Beyond the Blue campaign also includes a variety of federal, academic, non-profit, and private-sector partners.

Videos and Images

As applicable, dive highlight videos, short video clips, and photos will be posted online in associated expedition galleries as they become available.

Images and video collected during 2025 Beyond the Blue operations are in the public domain, meaning they are free to use without restrictions or additional permissions, provided that the credit information listed in the caption associated with each image or video is included. If space is limited, please credit NOAA Ocean Exploration (preferred) or NOAA.

Please contact Emily Crum for high-resolution footage, b-roll, and other materials posted on the NOAA Ocean Exploration website.

For additional information, please view our online media kit.

NOAA Ocean Exploration Background Information

• NOAA Ocean Exploration is dedicated to exploring the unknown ocean, unlocking its potential through scientific discovery, technological advancements, and data delivery. We are leading national efforts to fill gaps in our basic understanding of the marine environment, providing critical ocean data, information, and awareness needed to strengthen the economy, health, and security of the United States and the world.
• NOAA Ocean Exploration’s work supports the National Strategy for Mapping, Exploring, and Characterizing the United States Exclusive Economic Zone, which calls for coordinating interagency mapping and exploration activities for the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), developing new and emerging science and mapping technologies, building public and private partnerships, and completing mapping of the deep water of the U.S. EEZ by 2030 and the near shore by 2040.
• NOAA Ocean Exploration owns the mission equipment being used during the expedition and is coordinating the mission on NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer. The ship is operated by the NOAA Commissioned Officer Corps and civilians as part of NOAA's fleet managed by the NOAA Office of Marine and Aviation Operations and the remotely operated vehicles are operated in partnership with the Global Foundation for Ocean Exploration.
• Unlike many other ocean expeditions supported by NOAA, most of the scientists participating in expeditions on Okeanos Explorer remain on shore, thanks to telepresence technology. This technology includes a high-bandwidth satellite connection that enables the transmission of data and video to shore in real time, allowing scientists to participate in the expedition from anywhere in the world.
• Data collected during expeditions on Okeanos Explorer are quality assured and then made quickly available to scientists and the public. This data collection serves as a unique and centralized national resource of critical ocean information for scientists and resource managers to plan future research, make management decisions, detect natural hazards, improve nautical charts, and more.

Media Contact Information